Sometimes you don't mind when things go wrong...

Next weekend, the Goldbergs will be starting their pre-Long Beach show auction. On Sunday, 9/19/10, there will be a special session devoted to two collections of early copper errors. The Davy collection of half cent errors has 368 lots. The Holmes collection of large cent errors brings the total to 635 lots of errors. (Actually, some of the items are electotypes, altered coins, etc., but you get the idea.) Nearly all dates of half and large cents are represented. There's some of just about everything: off-center strikes; double & triple strikes, some flip-over, some with significant rotation; brockages and brockage makers; clipped planchets; coins struck over other coins, US and foreign; planchet laminations; misaligned dies; and more. Some of the coins have more than one of these issues, like a cent struck normally over a brockage.

One thing that strikes me about these coins is that they were well used. Most are in low-ish, "collector" grades. It didn't seem to matter to people when something was wrong with a coin. They had a purpose, and folks used them for that purpose even though they looked funny. On the one hand, coin collecting wasn't a big thing in the days of early American copper. And on the other hand, some folks may not have been able to afford to tuck away even a curious looking 'penny'.

I encourage all of you to go to the Goldbergs' site, www.goldbergcoins.com, and browse through the catalog. Like other recent early copper offerings from the Goldbergs, the catalog descriptions were written by Bob Grellman (and I think the estimates are from Chris McCawley). The descriptions are meatier than is typical in auction catalogs, and every lot is pictured. It's not quite like Mark Borckardt's catalog (for Heritage) of the Husak collection of early date large cents, but this catalog is definitely worth looking at. I'm going to keep my copy as a permanent reference, along with others for recent sales of major copper collections. (Members of EAC get copies of these catalogs through an arrangement with the company.)

I'm not an error collector, but find this stuff to be fascinating. I hope all of you are always able to find something like this to keep interest up in our great hobby!